


Words

by Mertiya



Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Judaism, Language, M/M, Magic-Users, Mutilation, Possibly slightly canon-divergent, Power of Words, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 13:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11670330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Billy's powers aren't as arbitrary as some people believe them to be; they're about words and will and understanding.





	Words

The thing is, it’s the words. It takes a long time for Billy to really realize how much they matter. He just assumes, at first, that it’s a focusing device, a crutch that he’ll eventually learn to do without. Muttering what he wants to happen, even softly, isn’t the best strategy when it comes to any level of surprise, after all. But he can’t get rid of them.

            He’s been surrounded by words since he was little. Every Friday night, the words of an ancient language have kept him and his family company, pouring through him like his own blood, the blessings spoken over the candles, the coming together of the family. Billy’s not sure how religious he is anymore, but he still feels connected to his heritage, to his family, to his _people_ , through those always-familiar words.

            The shape of words on his tongue has always felt like power, so in some ways it’s not so strange when he’s muttering _Iwanthimtostop_ at Kesler when he feels the power flowing hot through his mouth. And then the words change to, _Iwanthimtohurt_ —that vicious little secret that Billy keeps twisted away in his heart, because if he’d really thought that those words could spark and flame up the way they did—would he still have said them? But he thinks he was already feeling their heat and their power. He’s ashamed of himself, and guilty. _Iwanthimtobeallright_ , later, crying in the schoolyard—that’s better, but it’s not enough.

            Even after that, it takes a stupidly long amount of time for him to realize that the power is in the words. He and Teddy go through a whole bunch of self-help books, and reading up on mantras turns out to make it a lot easier to cast spells, but somehow it doesn’t strike him that the way he really shapes the world is with words, that the power does not come from his _heart_ but his _tongue_ and his _ears_ , his spoken will and his understanding of that spoken desire—it’s not really something he understands until he’s chained up by the Warden with his hands immobilized and the current from his lips to his brain broken and irreparable.

        His voice is not enough; his _thoughts_ are not enough. Only the desire formed, spoken, and heard aloud is enough. And in some ways that’s kind of good. It means that he _knows_ that Teddy is just Teddy, because he’s never wished aloud for Teddy to be any other than Teddy is—but when Teddy confesses how much he’s afraid that he is a product of Billy’s abilities—well. Billy can’t tell him then; it would sound like an excuse. And _he’s_ the one who brought Mother down on them; he deserves to have Teddy leave him anyway. He might even deserve to die, although that’s a sick roiling thought in his head that he tries not to think about, because no one else deserves to have to go through what they all did when Cassie died.

        After all of that’s over, though, he tells Teddy. He tells him, crying into his arms well past midnight, begging for forgiveness for not telling him before, and for trying to kill himself _twice_. “I swear I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t thought it would stop Mother,” he gulps, and he’s _pretty_ sure that’s the truth. Words, even without the magic, still hold power, and no matter how dark things get in his head, he can’t see himself doing that to Teddy. Leaving him like that. Permanently.

        “It’s okay,” Teddy tells him. “I’m—well, I’m kind of mad at you, yeah, but—I get it.” He holds Billy and strokes his back. “I love you,” he says, and Billy murmurs it back, and those words have power, too, power to heal in a way that even the hottest blue fire cannot.

        The problem is that if Billy can work it out, so can other people. And the people who want to work out Billy’s powers the most—Billy’s _weaknesses_ the most—are exactly the people that Billy doesn’t want to ever know he has a weakness. The Young Avengers are halfway into one of the simplest rescue missions ever—another fire in an apartment building, some people to rescue, just there to help out the local fire department—when the sound bomb goes off. One minute Billy can hear it all, the crackling of flames, the shrieking of sirens, the creaking of the floor beneath his feet—the next he’s falling and surrounded by silence. He reaches for his words, but his throat’s vibrating uselessly, the current from mouth to mind severed once again. The blackness rises to engulf him before the fall completes.

        He wakes to blinding agony, his own screams echoing in his ears, and he chokes on thick blood in his mouth. There are lights shining bright in his eyes and a dry laugh that runs on and on, as someone preaches a litany of sins. It takes too long, scrabbling against the pain in his mouth, for Billy to understand where he is and what’s happening to him. He spits blood, but more and more wells up; he can’t speak around it, and the noises he chokes out through his mouth sounds like the cries of a wounded animal.

        It’s the Sons of the Serpent again, and Billy could almost laugh if it weren’t so pathetic. The whole thing was a trap—for _him_ —and he fell right into it. He’s the perfect victim—he’s Jewish, he’s gay, he’s a _witch_. _Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live_ , their leader’s saying to the TV cameras they have rigged up, and oh god, Teddy— _Teddy’s_ seeing this. Teddy’s going to be watching as they—as they do whatever they’re going to do to him. _Oh, god_ , Billy prays, or thinks, or wishes, _please let Tommy not let Teddy watch_.

        He’s practically choking, trying to form words, but it hurts, it hurts, and the words won’t come, nothing but more strangled, impossible noises. He can hear himself just fine, but that’s no good, because there are no _words_. That same dry, harsh laugh again, and a voice to his left saying, _The perverse tongue shall be cut out_.

        No. Oh, no. There’s warm blood on his chin as well, and Billy feels faint. He doesn’t know if it’s from pain or loss of blood or the gutwrenching horror of the realization. He has no words. They’ve taken his _words_. His magic wells up, crackling heat in his stomach, burning in his throat, but it can’t get out; he can’t shape it. The power dies, sizzling into nothingness before it can resolve. Billy sobs, fear and anger warring inside him. Blood trickles out of the corner of his mouth.

        He can’t see much, thanks to the blinding lights in his eyes, but he can feel the roughness of wood at his back. There are ropes around his wrists and his ankles, and even as he thinks this with mounting horror, he smells smoke rising to his nostrils even over the rank sharpness of blood suffusing everything. Some small part of him is laughing hysterically because, _god_ , it’s so cliché, but most of him is just occupied with wondering if he’s going to die of smoke inhalation or blood loss first.

        Because really, he’s got no chance. Even with all his friends looking for him, they’re never going to find him fast enough. If he could use his magic—but he can’t, because his words have been ripped out, his mouth filled with drool and blood in their place. _The perverse tongue shall be cut out_.

        He struggles anyway, because he can’t give up, because he can’t let Teddy watch and think he didn’t try as hard as possible to get home to him. To his vague, dizzy surprise, the ropes aren’t as tight as he’d expected, or maybe his wrists are skinnier than his captors thought, because he manages to extricate a hand to lie limply at his side. How very useful.

        _Words_ , he thinks dizzily, staring down at himself. His costume’s been shredded—maybe in the fire, maybe later—and it hangs in strips around his naked arms, which are orange in the flames flickering into existence around his feet. Like clay about to be fired in a furnace. Weird dappled shadows like letters flicker across them.

            When Billy was little, his favorite bedtime story was the story of Rabbi Loeb and the Golem of Prague, the clay figure who had been brought to life by the word _אמת_ and who became the protector of the Jewish people until the rabbi turned the word _אמת_ into the word _מת_ and the golem was hidden away to sleep until he was needed again. Even when he was older, Billy used to reread the story, or to think about it. When he was being bullied in school, it was pretty comforting to think about having a giant clay protector who wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you.

        The word _truth_ marked on clay flesh, read, and witnessed, carrying magic. Billy coughs and gasps, the world fading and swaying with pain and heat. Words written still have meaning. Words written are still comprehensible. _Words written_ —

        _Behold the work of the Lord!_ the voice from the leader booms at Billy’s side, and Billy raises his hand awkwardly and exhaustedly to his mouth. It comes away bright red and he traces the words in long, swooping letters down his other arm. _אני_ _רוצה_ _לחזור_ _הביתה_. Billy stares down at the markings, forming the old words inside his head, Hebrew on one side and English on the other, a strange, scrolling column. _I want to go home._

        It’s not going to work. It’s not going to work, and he’s going to die here with blood running down his chin, and his screams will be the last thing Teddy hears from him. Billy can see the guilt and anguish eat away at his boyfriend from the inside, and if he weren’t about to be dead, that would probably kill him.

        And then blue flares from inside his arm, the heat surging and crackling again, and this time it’s pouring out, because there are _words_ and _will_ and _understanding_ , even if nothing has been verbalized. The pain is still awful, but his magic is rising, and he can hear the shouts of his captors ringing in his ears, until suddenly they’re gone, and he’s falling with a bone-jarring thump onto the couch in his own living room. He’s still choking on blood, and he can’t _focus_ enough, arms slippier with that and with sweat, to perform another spell. Instead, he manages to get out a strangled half-moan, and his mother is in the room, shock written naked across her face.

        “Hold on, Billy,” she says, and for once her reassuring façade is cracking. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

        It gets bad there for a while. Billy’s slipping in and out; he’s lost a lot of blood, and he still can’t speak. He gets a transfusion from Tommy, and he falls asleep mostly because the hospital feeds him a lot of painkillers and also because Teddy refuses to leave his bedside, because he doesn’t think he could sleep feeling even halfway safe otherwise.

            When he wakes up, his head is clearer, and it’s pretty easy to get Teddy to get him a piece of paper and a pen, but when he puts his hand to it, he’s suddenly afraid.

            “Billy?” Teddy’s hand is soft on his shoulder.

            _I’m scared_ , Billy writes.

            “Yeah, me too.”

            _What if this doesn’t work?_

“Then we’ll figure something else out. It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.” Teddy’s big arms draw him into a protective embrace. “You got out of there and came back to me when you were almost dying of blood loss, Billy. You can do this.”

            And, really, hasn’t it always been about faith, too?

            _I want my words back_ , Billy writes.

            Blue light flares.

            “I love you.”

            “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please let it be noted that while I am half-Jewish and Judaism is a very important part of my heritage, I was never lucky enough to go to Hebrew school as a kid, and I've only rarely been able to celebrate my heritage, so I don't know Hebrew and have had to rely on some judicious googling to get the translation in the middle, so please let me know if I've fucked that up.


End file.
